


GRAND ILLUSION

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dark, M/M, Partner Betrayal, Remix, Sexual Coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-22
Updated: 2009-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's known what he wants for a long time.  You can't always have it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	GRAND ILLUSION

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mirage](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/16285) by Jennghis. 



Even back in the very beginning, he knew about Carter's taste in men.

Jonas Hansen; there was a prize. O'Neill chose Hansen for the Program himself. He'd known Carter'd been involved with him; that was in her file - engagement, end of engagement, and she was cleared to work at the Pentagon so nobody bothered to interview the old boyfriend again when she came to the SGC. His name was in the file, though: Captain Jonas Hansen. Putting the details together was kind of a jigsaw; Hansen had served with him (somewhere and sometime; no details; even now O'Neill edits them out of memory almost automatically), talking idly (the way men did to pass the time) about the bitch who dumped him, no names attached. And when the Program had taken off they had to staff it, and looking at the files, running numbers in his head, O'Neill had put it all together ('bitch' was 'Carter': the dates matched up) and recommended Hansen anyway. And it hadn't gone well.

At least after she joined SG-1 she wasn't dating any more. None of them had time for a life. But there were all those damned aliens. Maybe not Hathor so much - all she'd wanted to do was _kill_ Carter. And O'Neill loves Skaara (even if he is some kind of Ascended light-bulb these days; that's just wrong) - but he never liked the way Klorel looked at any of his kids - especially Carter. The ones that weren't _Goa'uld_ weren't much of an improvement, though. Two words: Aris Boch. Who'd looked at Carter in all the wrong ways even while he was planning on selling all of them.

Their allies, maybe-allies, and people who said they didn't want to have anything to do with Earth weren't much of an improvement. Jolinar, just for starters, because if not for Jolinar, there wouldn't have been Marty (and he won't think about Bynarr, he just won't, or about all the other things that damned snake left stuck in Carter's head.) And there was Narim. Both Marty and Narim took one look at his blonde 2IC and that's all she wrote. Carter was flattered. Or diplomatic. Or polite. He told himself he didn't give a damn.

By then they were four years and a couple of virtual lifetimes in, and they'd all dodged so many bullets that it was only to be expected that one wouldn't miss. They always say you never hear the one that kills you. And he hates clichés, but there are actually a lot of fates worse than death (ask Daniel some time.) Crippling blows, unacceptable liabilities, trails blazed to places no commander should ever go.

He thought he was done after Sara. He thought Carter had more sense. More self-preservation. Something. He should have known better all the way around. He pretended he didn't know, he didn't believe it, it _wasn't true_ , and when (thanks to that damned snake bitch Anise) he couldn't do that any more, he did what he's always done best (ask Sara): he'd taken all those feelings and buried them deep.

And Carter ... had let him ignore it. Had helped him ignore it. Had ignored it too. And it didn't _help_ , because how could you take someone who was willing - was able - to understand you that completely and stick the 'him-and-her' there could have been in a drawer marked 'File-and-Forget'?

It wasn't possible. But pretending it was made SG-1 possible. And what the four of them could do together was more important than anything any of them might ever want.

And the parade of whackos through Carter's life continued. All of them obsessed with her in one way or another. All of them (whether they knew it or not) wanting to _use_ her.

There was Orlin (more damned aliens with fixations, wanting Carter to be his personal Blue Fairy), and Adrian Conrad (who - because of Jolinar - wanted to _saw her open,_ and remind O'Neill to thank the _Tok'ra_ for that real nicely one of these days), and Jonas Quinn (following her around like a lost puppy hoping for the SG-1 Secret Handshake - not that she noticed, but then, none of them noticed much that year), and Aden Corso (like Aris Boch but less likeable - he only wanted her to fix his spaceship but O'Neill was pretty sure it wouldn't have ended there), and Fifth (Variation on a Theme by Orlin, and that one came back to haunt them), and Malcolm Barrett (the kinder gentler face of the NID - since the universe was apparently finally running out of alien menaces - and what he wanted was what everyone who didn't want to _kill them_ wanted: a way in.) And some of them were Bad Guys and some of them were just royal Pains in the Butt, and they'd all homed in on Carter. By then O'Neill had worked out a theory: any guy who wanted Carter was probably crazy in the bad way. And any guy Carter liked was going to be bad news, break her heart, die, or maybe all three. He doesn't think about where that leaves him, because he doesn't think about Carter. Tries not to. Succeeds, some of the time.

And then, finally, there was Pete Shanahan.

Who wanted to marry her.

And she said 'yes.'

She waited - O'Neill knew - for him to give her a reason to say 'no.' To _tell_ her to say 'no.' Not even for _the_ reason (the one they never mentioned, the one he'd like to think she'd forgotten, the one he wishes she would), but just for him to come up with some good excuse, something she could use. And he wouldn't give her that easy out. Wouldn't sling 'duty' and 'country' and the defense of Earth at her after seven years. He'd always let her find her own way. Hoping she could find her way _away._ Because nothing else was fair. He was her commanding officer. There'd always be the taint of undue influence. He knows what happens to front-line troops. The bonds that are forged. SG-1 had been on the front lines for seven years.

And he knew it wasn't an illusion, or the only glamour War had, but he still wanted to think Carter could pretend it was.

And then it was eight years. Shanahan was picking out china patterns. Carter was dragging her feet. O'Neill dragged Kerry Johnson into bed. Preemptive guilt.

The expression on Carter's face the day she'd come to his house and found him there with Kerry was enough to make him want to (God help them both) explain (too much) everything. Daniel was dead and he was having a picnic. Not really his finest hour. It had made more sense in his head. She'd left without having the conversation she'd come for. He already knew what it was going to be about.

It didn't matter anyway. Kerry'd seen enough to call him on his bullshit and walk out. And Carter broke off her engagement and they'd saved the galaxy and Jake died and Daniel came back from the dead. And somehow he couldn't figure out which of those things had to happen and which ones were just were the things that happened along the way. And if he doesn't know things like that any more, he doesn't belong anywhere near a front-line unit. Kerry said he ought to resign and run the SGC as a civilian. Instead he takes another star and a desk in Washington.

He hands over the SGC to Hank Landry. Hank won't do as bad a job of running the place as some guys O'Neill knows. Daniel starts packing for Atlantis. Carter takes a transfer out to Area 51. She wants to get Cassie settled in at UCLA, then she plans to spend a lot of time running around the universe on _Prometheus._ Safely this time.

Carter safe and sound and a hundred thousand light-years away for the next ten years (until he's done with Washington, retired, gone off to Minnesota and his cabin and what Daniel always called his 'Zen Lake' and as much-or-more happily-ever-after as he deserves.) Probably the best deal he's ever going to get. He gets all of six months to enjoy it.

Three, really. Because it's three months from the time he gets to Washington to the day Lt. Colonel Cameron Everett Mitchell walks through his office door. And because Mitchell's walking, it's time for O'Neill to keep the promise he made back when Mitchell wasn't much more than a bundle of bandages and sutures and drains in a hospital bed: walk out under your own power, and you can have any posting you want. Anything.

He hadn't really expected Mitchell to ask for SG-1. He'll give the man credit for aiming high. Easy enough to say 'yes' to. Making it work is Hank's problem.

But a week after Mitchell hits the SGC, it's O'Neill's problem, too. The fact that Daniel seems to have gotten himself married to another alien pales in comparison to the fact that they're apparently in the middle of another _war._

So he flies back out to Colorado. At least Carter isn't there. Yet. And O'Neill knows it's 'yet', the way he knows that most sentences that sound good end in 'but.' Because he listens to what Hank has to say about the new menace, and he fields a few gibes about not having told Mitchell that SG-1 was over, and he can feel in his bones that before the year is out, Carter's going to be back here. Back on the line.

With Mitchell.

And he's read Mitchell's file, and he's known Carter for eight years. He knows the kind of guys who go for Carter. He knows the kind she lets herself notice.

Mitchell takes risks and wants to take more. Jumped at the chance to be a Snake-eater. Couldn't wait to join Stargate Command. Wants the best - the most dangerous - toys. O'Neill was like that once.

And Mitchell's lucky, but the people around him aren't. O'Neill thinks of all the ways there are to go in for secret self-destruction when they drag you back to the war. And he knows about Carter's taste in men.

A man once said that a reputation is a useful thing to have. He makes a couple of calls - lining up a 302 - checks in with Daniel (not a new wife, apparently - the mercenary who tried to steal the _Prometheus_ last year - and O'Neill thinks there's a certain amount of payback in that, since Daniel went on that little jaunt against his personal preferences) - and then lets Mitchell take him for a joyride.

He has another kind of joyride in mind for afterward.

They end up back at his house. He was supposed to have put it on the market already, but the realtor said if he could hold off listing it until the fall, he'd get a better price. His personal things are in Washington, but there are still odds and ends of furniture here. Like the bed.

It doesn't take much in the way of steering. Mitchell's still flying high on adrenaline, more crazy-drunk from the 302 than he'd get off a case of beer. And there are things that 'everybody knows' about Jack O'Neill. They may be true. They may not. But it's useful in his line of work (past; long past; even present, so he's found) for people to know them. It isn't difficult at all to get Mitchell into the bedroom, to get Mitchell half-naked, to get Mitchell's cock out of his shorts and jack him until he blows.

Once upon a time he would have cut his own throat with a dull and rusty spoon before laying hands on a subordinate this way. He's Mitchell's _boss._ Sure, Hank's Mitchell's CO, but everyone lives in terror of Washington these days. And there are SG-1 stars in Mitchell's eyes. O'Neill's traded on that often enough in his new job. Traded on who he ... was.

He lost the privilege of clean hands a long time ago. And some things are worth selling your soul for. So when Mitchell - heavy-eyed and sated - slips to his knees in front of him and starts unbuckling his belt, O'Neill reaches out and strokes his hair.

Mitchell's already in love with SG-1. O'Neill's going to be the one who decides what Mitchell means by it.

#

It's easy enough, over the next few months, to come up with reasons to come back to the Springs. Personal business. Official business.

Mitchell, always.

He's not sure what Mitchell gets out of this. What _he's_ gotten out of it is enough to take Mitchell down in flames any time he wants to go with him. Mitchell's probably imagining Mutually-Assured Destruction will keep him safe. Mitchell really shouldn't place his faith in a man who's tossed his career in the Air Force's face three times to date. Four, depending on how you count. O'Neill has a cabin in Minnesota and a growing list of reasons he'd like to go there.

And one good reason to stay. The same one there ever was. The only one there ever is, really. To keep his people safe. And if there isn't any safety left, then he can keep one person just a little safer. Because - just as he'd expected - Carter's back at the SGC. Six months, more or less, after he took that Washington desk.

And he can't - he _won't_ \- keep her off the line. She swore an oath, the same one he took. The same one Mitchell took. _Protect and defend._ He'll bury her. But he won't let her break her heart.

He won't let _Mitchell_ break her heart.

And he thinks that the secret should be enough to distract Mitchell, because he can't think of too many people Mitchell can come out to with the line _'hey, I'm having a flaming gay affair with General Jack O'Neill'_ just offhand, except maybe Daniel, and when Daniel stopped laughing Mitchell would probably have come to his senses and realized that heart-to-heart talks on this particular subject weren't such a great idea, and O'Neill knows from experience that keeping secrets takes a lot of energy. So he thinks he's probably got Mitchell sufficiently distracted.

Until one day.

He's pretty damned good at blowjobs, actually. He doubts he'd get any complaints from Mitchell pretty much no matter what, but you can't argue with results. Fast and enthusiastic.

And this time, Mitchell says Carter's name as he comes.

Not 'Carter.' 'Sam.' She's 'Sam' to Mitchell.

O'Neill swallows. Reflex, automatic. Thinks of Survival Training (thinks, unkindly, that he was taking those courses about the time Mitchell was learning to walk the _first_ time) and about how one of the things it teaches you is how to override instinct and common sense to do what you have to for the greater good. He gets to his feet and stares down at the naked man sprawled on the bed in front of him.

His bed. His house. His...

"Sorry," Mitchell whispers. "I just... I didn't..."

"Are you sleeping with her?" He won't let himself think about what he'll do if the answer is 'yes'; he knows he's been thinking about it all along.

He sees Mitchell hesitate. Nerves. "No. I just…" Mitchell stops, but O'Neill isn't interested in hearing anything more. Excuses, justifications, _'oh, I'm sorry, General, sir, for a moment there while you were sucking me off I thought you were someone else...'_

"Not with Carter." He holds Mitchell's gaze until Mitchell nods.

He turns away then. They're done, this is done, everything's done. He pulls his jeans up, fastening them as he walks toward the door. "Let yourself out."

#

He's out on the deck with a beer, washing the taste of come and lies-by-implication out of his mouth. He's never been good at lying to himself. A problem for someone in his line of work. Couldn't say something was right when it was wrong. Couldn't say something was necessary when it wasn't. Couldn't _get with the program_. So to speak.

There's only been one lie he's ever been able to tell convincingly - a lie of omission - and for the last six years, his entire life has been built around it. That's the way lies are. Even the ones you tell so you can survive. It hasn't come back to haunt him because it's never left.

No sense now in Monday morning quarterbacking, thinking of what he'd have done differently, things he'd have said and choices he'd have made. He's always been too damned fond of that, even if nobody ever knew about it but him. 'Over and done.' That's the way to live. You can't change the past. Even when you know where the Black Budget boys keep the time machine.

He thinks about Carter. He thinks about Mitchell. Mitchell has SG-1 now, and O'Neill kept his hands off Carter for eight years - let her go, _made_ her go - and Mitchell showed up, and O'Neill knocked his feet out from under him before he'd been at the SGC a week, and is there, really, a qualitative difference (kind, degree) between screwing Mitchell and screwing Carter?

Because he'd like to know just how badly he's screwed up.

Daniel could tell him that you can't do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Daniel _did_ tell him. Often. Then not so often. He tries to remember when Daniel stopped, and he can't. After Euronda? Maybe. Maybe it was later. Because _he_ never stopped. There was a job to do. Orders. The tools at hand. An enemy who'd never fucking _heard_ of the Geneva Convention and wouldn't have cared if they had.

Doesn't matter. You don't bring the war home. You don't use the weapons on your own side. No justification. Ever.

"Sir?"

Mitchell's followed him out onto the deck. O'Neill's hand tightens on the bottle. Debates between breaking it and throwing it. Does neither. "I told you to leave."

"Sir." Different tone. Stubborn, determined, and 'I-hear-you-and-I'm-going-to-ignore-you', and O'Neill thinks of all the ways in which Mitchell's an asset to the SGC. Brave enough to be there. Brave enough to be _here._ Now.

He waits, and Mitchell waits, and it's not an easy silence, but it has the makings of a long one, and O'Neill doesn't have a lot of patience right now. "Say what you came to say."

"I will never do anything to hurt Sam. I need you to know that, sir."

O'Neill revises his opinion of bravery upwards to 'suicidal courage.' He gives Mitchell points for honesty, though. He started by calling Carter 'Sam,' and he isn't going back on that now. O'Neill can number the times _he's_ used her first name on his fingers and have fingers left over. She's Carter to him. His Carter. Bright and brave. And - before K'Tau, before Vorash, before her Evil Robot Twin tricked them all and murdered Daniel - _pure._

It's a quaint sort of word, _pure._ Doesn't really fit. Carter was never an innocent fainting maiden, not from the first moment he saw her. But there was something else. Something she had, back in the beginning. Something the Gate took away. Or he did. Because she did - always - what he trained her to do. He wishes, now (knowing he'd never do anything different), that it had been less about 'expediency' and more about 'right.'

"You're all going to be hurt," he says. Not what he meant to say. Still true. He's watched Daniel bleed out and Carter scar over and it's too soon to tell what's going to happen to Mitchell. He turns toward Mitchell, resting his hip on the rail. He owes Mitchell his face.

Mitchell's standing in the center of the deck at easy attention. Casually respectful. No guilt, and a lot more courtesy than O'Neill actually feels he deserves right now. But then, he's the only one who knows he was using Mitchell. Setting him up. Or maybe not. You don't get where Mitchell's gotten by being stupid.

"I will take care of them," Mitchell repeats (same song, different words), and it's a promise, it's a prayer, it's the only prayer any good commander every really means: _let it happen to me instead of to them, no matter what it is._

And knowing this (knowing Mitchell) is an epiphany O'Neill doesn't really want. They usually come with warheads - he thinks of Abydos (the first time); the Gadmeer ship (knowing he could make Carter break the rules; knowing Daniel would break them in a different way.) Finding out things he didn't want to know. Like today. Finding out that Mitchell is someone else than O'Neill thought he was.

And so is he.

"Carter-" he has to take a swallow of beer to wet his throat before he can go on, "Carter's always had really lousy taste in men." _And you'll want to die for them, but Daniel will throw himself on that grenade if you don't get to it first. Teal'c lives here, but he's never going to get over that whole 'Jaffa Revenge Thing.' And the reason I thought I was starting with you wasn't the reason at all._

He knows Mitchell hears the unspoken words. The things O'Neill can't say and won't say because he's spent so many years saying nothing at all. He thinks of love and wanting and a forgiveness he doesn't believe in tendered by a God as dead as the _Goa'uld._ Of second chances that don't exist because there's never a chance to make things right. Sometimes you get the chance not to make them worse. That's all.

Mitchell nods again, just a little. The barest dip of his head. "Hard to let go," he says neutrally, and O'Neill knows that he can't. He's never been good at letting go and moving on. Everything in his past has been _taken away_. Charlie. Sara. SG-1. Even the past itself. And the things they give you as replacements are never quite the same.

He wonders when he stopped reading men and started reading papers. Mitchell isn't the man in that file. He's someone who belongs on SG-1. To take care of his people and bring them safely home. Body, mind ... and heart. He'll protect all of them. He'll protect Carter.

That's Mitchell's job now.

O'Neill raises his bottle in an ironic salute. _To the future._

Mitchell doesn't smile, doesn't look relieved. Probably just minding his manners. He's got the free pass and the brass ring. His future is safe. Hell, he can even start picking out curtains with Carter, if she wants that. O'Neill's got no right to stop her.

Them.

"You don't have to," Mitchell says quietly.

O'Neill tilts the bottle back. Drains it to the dregs. Sets it on the rail. "I don't think I'll be around much any more. Business in Washington." Somewhere far away from this. It's a new war. Time for different mistakes.

"Yes, sir," Mitchell says, and his eyes are warily sad. That's the trouble with the smart ones. They see too much.

"I told you, I think, you could see yourself out."

"Yes, sir. You did that." Mitchell nods again - it isn't a salute, but it feels like one - and turns to go. O'Neill turns his back again. A minute later he hears the front door open and close. A few minutes after that, he hears the sound of Mitchell's car.

Gone.

He'll miss Mitchell. His future. His past.

He goes inside the house to get another beer.

###

**Author's Note:**

> Much Beta Love to Minxy and Synecdochic, who held my hand. A lot.
> 
> This was written for a remix challenge, but damned if I remember any of the details. The original was about 600 words long. My remix was ... longer.


End file.
